I find myself worrying about everyone else, what they're achieving (or not achieving) and stressing myself out trying to solve other peoples problems and ultimately doing their job for them.
I believed this to be wholly due to the fact that when other people fail it looks badly on myself and makes my job 10x harder, however when actually reflecting on the last 5 years it is pretty obvious that
this has absolutely nothing to do with my current role but more to do with my personal attributes.
Accountability
I have found that the best way to make sure that the focus stays within the control of myself is to make other people accountable. This to me is the most important aspect that has kept me from
worrying about what is not in my control. It is physically impossible for one person to do the job of fourty other people, but it is absolutely possible for one person to influence the actions of fourty
other people; simply by making them accountable. Whether this be by having group conversations with colleagues through meetings or teams chats or by simply following up conversations with an email or message,
if there is a document of everything then there is accountability to get the job done.
How to introduce documenting conversations
Culture is everything within a business, and is often the most difficult thing to overcome. Where people have the habbits of having conversations and then never documenting them or backing them up in writing
there is always a risk that something will get forgotten (either by mistake or not) and in turn the job will never get done. The easiest way I found to turn this around and create a habbit of emails, messages,
or minutes is to set a standard. This is easier said than done depending on the position and could potentially give you a reputation that you don't want. In my chosen industry, manufacturing, it's a
lot easier for me as I merely just push this as a requirement of a customer or standard that must be followed to maintain respect or accreditation.
Following up
Although you cannot control other peoples actions, nor can you realistically do everything for them, if it's something that is important and you know it needs to be done there is no harm in following up
with a "how did you get on with...". It'll either remind them with a prompt or will pleasantly suprise when the answer is possitive. I find that often people get fed up of being wrong or not acheiving
when they realise that someone else knows they've failed and in turn will start getting things done because they know that they are going to be asked about it.
Setting realistic expectations
As a person who wants to succeed it is exceptionally difficult to get to grips with the idea that not everyone works the same way as you or has the same goals that you do so the most important one here is to
set the expectations for other people in your mind. I remind myself regularly that not everyone is the same and what is right for myself might not be right for someone else.
Whether this be meeting deadlines early, doing things a specific way or communicating regularly; not everyone will work the same way as each other.
The world needs the cheifs and the cowboys
Let's be completely honest with ourselves, the world needs the cheifs and the cowboys; in fact the world needs more cowboys. Nothing can be sustained if everyone is trying to take control and everyone
wants to rule. There needs to be the people in this world that want to get up, go to work, come home and enjoy their evenings; without them the work just wouldn't get done. So next time you find yourself
getting frustrated because someone isn't doing something the way you want it done or as quick as you could do it just remember that not everyone can be a chief or nothing would get done. Step back and let
them do their thing.
Sometimes you have to let people fail
This is the hardest lesson I had to teach myself, and to be honest I'm still learning myself. Letting others fail.
When you can clearly in your minds eye see someone failing and making the wrong decision the leader personality always kicks in and tries to micro-manage them out of the situation. However, this
isn't always the best way to handle the situation. People need to fail to grow. We have all been taught that failing is wrong and should
be avoided at all cost when in actual fact learning to fail is an important life lesson and is necessary for personal and professional
growth. Failing personally isn't the only way to learn however, learning from other peoples failures is just as important and is better
where possible. So, let people fail occassionally. You'll thank me for it. They'll either grow from it or you'll learn from it.
Stop micro-managing
It's always difficult to sit back and let people forge their own paths when you know that it could have detromental affects on yourself and your performance, but micro-managing is frustrating for other
people, hard to maintain for youself and will ultimately hold other people back. They have to learn to make their own decisions and have accountability for their actions. If they're always being
told what to do then they will never learn, never grow and will be a burden.
Get back to your job and stop paying attention to other people, it will work out in the end.